Adrift
Even the most powerful beings come to an end at some point.
Armanna awakened, sore, shaken and freezing. The vast oceanic void of deep space surrounded her on all sides, decorated by distant, gleaming pin-prick stars, far outside of her reach. Blobs of blood, red and sticky, drifted away like bubbles in water from an open wound on her midsection. A single mana battery was all that was left to hold in air for her to breathe, but it was draining quickly--it could not last long.
She tried think back, cutting through the pain of her injury. There was...a spell. Yes, that was it! A revolution in arcane transportation--a spell that could let individuals warp between stars as only the greatest of ships could. There was to be a public demonstration, before all of the King's top mages. She remembered uttering the phrase to draw mana from her battery, moving her hands in precise circles, preparing to cast the spell. Everything was done perfectly, until Armanna's most trusted assistant stabbed her with a fine, gleaming dagger.
As the rush of memories flowed into an aching skull, Armanna was filled with rage. A witch of such legendary reputation such as Armanna the Great and Gilded could not be so easily slain. She began to make the motions of the spell once more, and opened her mouth, tongue waggling, to recite the crucial incantation to draw mana from the battery on her belt. But even as she felt the air leaving her lungs, moved her tongue and jaw, and opened her chapped and wrinkled lips, no noise was made, and the spell was never cast.
The realization hit. Armanna's aged features locked in a face brewing with rage, shock, and self-mourning as she opened wide to scream a silent wail for ears that would never hear her. As the last of the battery's mana seeped away, the cold set in, and the Great and Gilded witch Armanna felt her millennia-old heart come to a final stop.
She tried think back, cutting through the pain of her injury. There was...a spell. Yes, that was it! A revolution in arcane transportation--a spell that could let individuals warp between stars as only the greatest of ships could. There was to be a public demonstration, before all of the King's top mages. She remembered uttering the phrase to draw mana from her battery, moving her hands in precise circles, preparing to cast the spell. Everything was done perfectly, until Armanna's most trusted assistant stabbed her with a fine, gleaming dagger.
As the rush of memories flowed into an aching skull, Armanna was filled with rage. A witch of such legendary reputation such as Armanna the Great and Gilded could not be so easily slain. She began to make the motions of the spell once more, and opened her mouth, tongue waggling, to recite the crucial incantation to draw mana from the battery on her belt. But even as she felt the air leaving her lungs, moved her tongue and jaw, and opened her chapped and wrinkled lips, no noise was made, and the spell was never cast.
The realization hit. Armanna's aged features locked in a face brewing with rage, shock, and self-mourning as she opened wide to scream a silent wail for ears that would never hear her. As the last of the battery's mana seeped away, the cold set in, and the Great and Gilded witch Armanna felt her millennia-old heart come to a final stop.
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